Ingram's October 2023

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JASON KNIGHT Saint Luke’s Health System

ANDREW KAO Saint Luke’s Health System

The rigors of medical school are well-known; less familiar to most people are the challenges that new med school graduates face during residency training that can run from three to seven years. For Jason Knight, though, residency was a time to assess fascinating opportunities at nearly every turn. “I enjoyed every single clinical rotation,” he says. “I was torn between pursuing a career in surgery, which would mean leaving my passion for medicine behind or pursuing a career in internal medicine, leaving my pas sion for surgery behind. I was fortunate to have a rotation in gynecologic oncology, where I quickly realized that the field required both mastery of surgery and internal medicine. The rest is history.” The most recent chapter of that history

Both of his grandparents, an uncle, an aunt, and a pair of cousins—doctors, all. With a family history like that, is it any sur prise Andrew Kao ended up in medicine? “I did consider getting a Ph.D. in chemistry,” he says, “but realized that my passion is working with people rather than solving problems in the lab— nothing wrong with that; medicine is just more suitable for my personality. My parents always encouraged me to do what I like

the most and didn’t pressure me to be in any particular career path, but with the long history of medicine in my family, it was in my blood.” Raised in Minneapolis, Kao worked in a hospital while in high school and participated in Explorer Scouts with a troop at the Mayo Clinic, further sealing his interest. He scored a prized slot at the University of Chica go School of Medicine, chose cardiology coming out of his residency, and eventually land-

is playing out at Saint Luke’s for this native New Yorker and Yale med-school grad, follow ing a 10-year stint at the Cleve land Clinic. Before any of that, though, Knight’s closest con nection to medicine came as a science teacher. “My inter est in medicine evolved over time from an appreciation for the relationship between our experiences, our environment, our biology, and our health,” he says. Teaching before tak

ed at Saint Luke’s, where he’s the medical director for the high ly regarded heart transplantation program. “I quickly became drawn to the lifesaving nature of transplant—it presented a lot of challenges and allowed me to use my internal medicine train ing as well,” Kao says. “Seeing my first patient saved by a trans plant really solidified my desire to pursue this line of work.” He made his way back to the Midwest thanks to a health-care recruiting firm and found the fit was still good. “I really like the friendliness of Kansas City, and the traffic is definitely much bet ter” than back east, he says. “Everyone collaborates to achieve the highest standards of care, so it really pushes me to try to perform my best as part of the transplant team.” Still, the work is not without challenges. “I think there are more and more regulations which really constrain how we practice,” he says. “I continue to be amazed that we practice in the greatest and wealthiest country in the world, and yet there are a sizable number of patients who are without insurance or underinsured, which really limits their access to lifesaving care. I am very fortunate to be surrounded by a dedicated and amazing group of nurses, social workers, and other professionals who work together to help each patient to the best of our ability.” While directing the program, he’s not on the front lines—his cardiol ogy skills address patients’ needs before and after surgery. “I often joke with patients that I faint at the sight of blood,” he says. Every day, he says, “work affirms my career choice. I guess I could have made multiple other career choices and would have probably done well with them, but I can’t think of another career or professional choice that provides so much satisfaction. See ing patients go from near death to having a new lease on life and being able to get married, finish school, have children or grandchildren, etc., is so touching, and I often tell my patients that seeing them do so well is thank you enough for me.”

ing the health-care path “helped me to understand that the greatest gift I can give to patients is an understanding of their disease and how they can live their best life despite a bout with illness.” The framework for that was the number of curious and inquisitive people who surrounded him in his youth, he says. “My mom worked in a college library, and my dad is a retired telephone technician. So books and techni cal equipment were readily available to me. That, combined with my own curiosity about living things, led me to study biology and eventually medicine.” Saint Luke’s, he says, allowed him to follow what he calls a guiding principle in life: “Always follow opportunity. When I saw the high-quality clinical care, innovation, and collaboration that was happen ing at Saint Luke’s, it became clear to me that this is where I need to be. It was the perfect next step for me to contribute what I’ve learned so far to a team and a community that is accomplishing great things.” And doing it in difficult circum stances as a provider. “Cancer is a devastating diagnosis, and it’s incredibly disruptive to younger and older people alike,” he says. “My biggest opportunity when caring for pa tients is to help them find a path that aligns with their goals and values. Sometimes, the ‘perfect’ path doesn’t present itself, and that can be a difficult moment.” Yet in those mo ments, he says, there is often an opportunity to see new possibilities in the path that is available that neither patient nor physician might have been open to at first.

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October 2023

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